In the Wake of the News

Chicago Bulls can't keep up with Rajon Rondo

Boston Celtics guard sets the tone for easy victory

Perhaps you're wondering how the Bulls could be so good in the first two playoff games in Boston and then come home to an adoring crowd and play so wretchedly.

My early thought was that someone showed up at the United Center with a high-powered rifle and tranquilizer darts, but as the game progressed Thursday night, I saw I was wrong.

There were at least two good reasons for what happened.

There was no Bulls' defense to speak of, or at least no defense to speak kindly of.

And the Bulls still have absolutely no idea how to stop Boston's Rajon Rondo.

Add it up, and you have the kind of humiliating performance the Bulls put on Thursday night, a 107-86 loss that left them trailing the Celtics 2-1 in their best-of-seven playoff series.

Actually, the UC crowd wasn't so adoring at the end of the first half, when it booed the home team, which trailed by 22 points. That might seem cold and reactionary of the fans -- OK, it is cold and reactionary -- but the Bulls looked dreadful. Translated, those boos said, "You're kidding, right? These are the playoffs, and you're playing like this? At home?"

The Bulls weren't kidding, and the game was a complete joke.

"It was like one team was in the playoffs and one team was in the preseason," the Bulls' Kirk Hinrich said.

I can't tell you what surrender looks like exactly, but with 8 minutes 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the Bulls' Aaron Gray checked into the game. I'll go with that. At that point, the Bulls trailed by 34.

They couldn't react quickly enough to affect Ray Allen's quick-release shot. They didn't have an answer for Rondo's all-around game (20 points, 11 rebounds, six assists). And Paul Pierce finally got hot, though he had so many open looks in the first half, he could have been playing H-O-R-S-E.

Pierce tried to draw a foul in the third quarter, didn't and still made the off-balance three-pointer anyway. I would say it was that kind of night for the Bulls, except it would give the impression that luck simply was against them Thursday night. Trust me: Luck had the night off.

No, Boston took full advantage of the Bulls' weak defense. And the Bulls shot 37.5 percent from the floor.

Does the word "brutal" do anything for you?

Uncontested layups are not supposed to happen in the NBA, but there was a major outbreak of them. And the Celtics also hit 12 of 21 three-pointers.

"We just didn't come out with the sense of urgency they did," the Bulls' John Salmons said.

How is that possible?

The guy who made the Celtics go was Rondo, their point guard. Neither Derrick Rose nor Hinrich has been able to stay with him, and it has opened all sorts of opportunities for the Celtics. If the Bulls want to remain competitive in this conference quarterfinal, they better figure out a way to deal with Rondo's quickness.

Here's the bummer about Thursday night: This is a different Bulls team from the one that took the floor before the trade that brought Salmons and Brad Miller to Chicago from Sacramento. The old model simply wasn't very interesting. There are old couches that are more interesting than what we saw earlier in the season.

The Bulls were back to the old-couch look Thursday.

The whole idea of postseason basketball is you don't need the dog-and-pony show, the piped-in noise inside the arena, the sensory overload. The basketball is the thing. It stands on its own merit. The basketball experience takes over the entertainment experience. Imagine that.

This is why the playoffs are so much better than the regular season. And yet the Bulls played, as Hinrich said, as if they were taking part in a preseason exhibition. Can anybody explain that, especially after how well they played in Games 1 and 2?

Can anyone explain 22 turnovers and 14 assists for the team with the home-court advantage?

The Bulls had encouraged their fans to wear red to Thursday's game. The so-called See Red effort, which was borrowed from the Calgary Flames, was cool, just sort of beside the point. The basketball was supposed to be enough. It wasn't.

Before the game, Rose received his Rookie of the Year trophy, and the crowd went nuts.

Who knew that was going to be the highlight? Rose shot 4 of 14 from the floor.

In the good-news department, Del Negro still had timeouts left at the end of the game. See? A glimmer of hope.

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rmorrissey@tribune.com

More Game 3 coverage

Read Dan McGrath's observations and check out a photo gallery at chicagotribune.com/bulls